Asian Football Confederation
Salman Bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa | website = }} The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is the governing body of association football in Asia and Australia. It has 47 member countries, mostly located on the Asian and Australian continent but excluding all the transcontinental countries with territory in both Europe and Asia, which are members of UEFA (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkey). Israel is also a UEFA member even though it lies entirely in Asia, as is arguably also the case for Cyprus. On the other hand, Australia, formerly in the OFC, has joined the Asian Football Confederation since 2006, and the Oceanian island of Guam, a territory of the United States, is also a member of AFC. One of FIFA's six continental confederations, the AFC was formed officially on 8 May 1954 in Manila, Philippines, on the sidelines of the second Asian Games. The main headquarters is located in Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The current president is Salman Bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa of Bahrain. History The Asian Football Confederation was founded on 8 May 1954. Afghanistan, Burma (Myanmar), Republic of China (Chinese Taipei), Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore and South Vietnam were founding members. The Asian Ladies Football Confederation (ALFC) is the section of the AFC who manage women's football in Asia. The group was independently founded in April 1968 in a meeting involving Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. In 1986 the ALFC merged with the AFC. The Asian Ladies Football Confederation helped organise the AFC Women's Asian Cup, first held in 1975, as well as the AFC's AFC U-19 Women's Championship and the AFC U-17 Women's Championship. Members The AFC has 47 member associations split into five regions. * 12 from West Asia * 6 from Central Asia * 7 from South Asia * 10 from East Asia * 12 from South East Asia 1: Associate AFC member Former members * Israel Football Association 1954–1974; joined UEFA in 1994 because they were excluded from AFC competitions, as a result of a proposal by Kuwait which was adopted by a vote of 17 to 13 with 6 abstentions. * New Zealand Football 1964; founding member of OFC in 1966 * Football Federation of Kazakhstan 1992–2002; joined UEFA in 2002 Competitions International The AFC runs the AFC Asian Cup and AFC Women's Asian Cup - both competitions are held every four years and determine the national Champions of Asia. The AFC also organises the AFC Challenge Cup, AFC Futsal Championship, AFC Beach Soccer Championship, various age-level international youth football tournaments and the Asian qualifying tournament for the FIFA World Cup, FIFA Women's World Cup and for football at the Summer Olympics. In addition to the AFC run international tournaments, each AFC regional federation organises its own tournament for national teams: EAFF East Asian Cup, SAFF Championship, AFF Championship and WAFF Championship. Club The top-ranked AFC competition is the AFC Champions League, which started in the 2002–03 season (an amalgamation of the Asian Champions Cup and the Asian Cup Winners Cup) and gathers the top 1–4 teams of each country (the number of teams depend on that country's ranking and can be upgraded or downgraded); this competition only gathered teams from top country. A second, lower-ranked competition is the AFC Cup. This competition was launched by AFC in 2004. A third competition, the AFC President's Cup, which had started in 2005, was absorbed into the AFC Cup in 2015. The AFC also runs an annual Asian futsal club competition, the AFC Futsal Club Championship. Current champions Defunct competitions Sponsors The following are the sponsors of AFC (named "AFC Partners"): * Fly Emirates * Nike * Nikon Corporation * ING * Panasonic * Tsingtao * Yanmar * Qatar Petroleum * QNB Group * Seiko * Qantas Rankings Men's national teams Rankings are calculated by FIFA. Last updated 12 February 2015 Top ranked men's national teams ImageSize = width:150 height:1200 PlotArea = left:40 right:0 bottom:5 top:10 DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy Period = from:08/08/1993 till:12/09/2005 ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:1 start:1994 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical format:yyyy Colors = id:KSA value:green id:IRN value:white id:JPN value:blue id:AUS value:yellow id:KOR value:red PlotData= bar:Leaders width:25 mark:(line,black) align:left fontsize:S from:08/08/1993 till:19/11/1993 shift:(20,-3) text:"Korea Republic" color:KOR from:19/11/1993 till:22/08/1995 shift:(20,-3) text:"Saudi Arabia" color:KSA from:22/08/1995 till:19/09/1995 shift:(20,-5) text:"Japan" color:JPN from:19/09/1995 till:17/10/1995 shift:(20,-3) text:"Saudi Arabia" color:KSA from:17/10/1995 till:15/07/1998 shift:(20,-5) text:"Japan" color:JPN from:15/07/1998 till:27/01/1999 shift:(20,-3) text:"Korea Republic" color:KOR from:27/01/1999 till:24/02/1999 shift:(20,-5) text:"Japan" color:JPN from:24/02/1999 till:18/08/1999 shift:(20,-3) text:"Korea Republic" color:KOR from:18/08/1999 till:12/04/2000 shift:(20,-3) text:"Saudi Arabia" color:KSA from:12/04/2000 till:07/07/2000 shift:(20,-5) text:"Korea Republic" color:KOR from:07/07/2000 till:05/08/2000 shift:(20,-4) text:"Iran" color:IRN from:05/08/2000 till:10/10/2000 shift:(20,-5) text:"Korea Republic" color:KOR from:11/10/2000 till:15/11/2000 shift:(20,-5) text:"Iran" color:IRN from:15/11/2000 till:20/12/2000 shift:(20,-5) text:"Japan" color:JPN from:20/12/2000 till:17/01/2001 shift:(20,-6) text:"Saudi Arabia" color:KSA from:17/01/2001 till:14/02/2001 shift:(20,-3) text:"Iran " color:IRN from:14/02/2001 till:22/08/2001 shift:(20,-5) text:"Saudi Arabia" color:KSA from:22/08/2001 till:21/11/2001 shift:(20,-6) text:"Japan" color:JPN from:21/11/2001 till:03/07/2002 shift:(20,-5) text:"Iran" color:IRN from:03/07/2002 till:30/07/2003 shift:(20,-5) text:"Korea Republic" color:KOR from:30/07/2003 till:22/10/2003 shift:(20,-4) text:"Japan " color:JPN from:22/10/2003 till:14/04/2004 shift:(20,-4) text:"Korea Republic" color:KOR from:14/04/2004 till:07/07/2004 shift:(20,-4) text:"Iran" color:IRN from:07/07/2004 till:04/08/2004 shift:(20,-4) text:"Korea Republic" color:KOR from:04/08/2004 till:15/06/2005 shift:(20,-4) text:"Japan " color:JPN from:15/06/2005 till:20/07/2005 shift:(20,-4) text:"Iran" color:IRN from:20/07/2005 till:17/08/2005 shift:(20,-4) text:"Japan " color:JPN from:17/08/2005 till:12/09/2005 shift:(20,-4) text:"Iran" color:IRN ImageSize = width:150 height:1200 PlotArea = left:40 right:0 bottom:5 top:10 DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy Period = from:12/09/2005 till:12/03/2015 ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:1 start:2006 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical format:yyyy Colors = id:KSA value:green id:IRN value:white id:JPN value:blue id:AUS value:yellow id:KOR value:red PlotData= bar:Leaders width:25 mark:(line,black) align:left fontsize:S from:12/09/2005 till:12/07/2006 shift:(20,-4) text:"Japan " color:JPN from:12/07/2006 till:22/11/2006 shift:(20,-4) text:"Australia" color:AUS from:22/11/2006 till:13/06/2007 shift:(20,-4) text:"Iran" color:IRN from:13/06/2007 till:04/06/2008 shift:(20,-4) text:"Japan " color:JPN from:04/06/2008 till:02/07/2008 shift:(20,-4) text:"Australia" color:AUS from:02/07/2008 till:12/11/2008 shift:(20,-4) text:"Japan " color:JPN from:12/11/2008 till:02/02/2011 shift:(20,-4) text:"Australia" color:AUS from:02/02/2011 till:12/02/2012 shift:(20,-4) text:"Japan " color:JPN from:12/02/2012 till:06/06/2012 shift:(20,0) text:"Australia" color:AUS from:06/06/2012 till:28/11/2013 shift:(20,-4) text:"Japan " color:JPN from:28/11/2013 till:17/07/2014 shift:(20,-4) text:"Iran" color:IRN from:17/07/2014 till:18/09/2014 shift:(20,-4) text:"Japan " color:JPN from:18/09/2014 till:27/11/2014 shift:(20,-4) text:"Iran" color:IRN from:27/11/2014 till:18/12/2014 shift:(20,-4) text:"Japan " color:JPN from:18/12/2014 till: end shift:(20,-4) text:"Iran" color:IRN Women's national teams Rankings are calculated by FIFA. Last updated 19 December 2014 National leagues Rankings are calculated by IFFHS . Top 100 National League in 2014 Clubs Rankings are calculated by the IFFHS. Last updated 13 January 2015 Clubs Rankings are calculated by the AFC. *Last updated 19 December 2014 *Last updated 19 December 2014 Hall of Fame * Harry Kewell * Baichung Bhutia * Homayoun Behzadi * Ali Daei * Yasuhiko Okudera * Hong Myung-bo * Soh Chin Aun * Sami Al Jaber * Sun Wen * Homare Sawa World Cup participation ;Legend *''' 1st ' – Champion *' 2nd ' – Runner-up *' 3rd ' – Third place *' 4th ' – Fourth place *'QF''' – Quarterfinals *'R16' – Round of 16 (since 1986: knockout round of 16) *'GS' – Group stage (in the 1950, 1974, 1978, and 1982 tournaments, which had two group stages, this refers to the first group stage) *'1S' – First knockout stage (1934–1938 Single-elimination tournament) * • — Did not qualify * — Did not enter / withdrew / banned * — Hosts FIFA World Cup FIFA Women's World Cup Notes Other international tournaments FIFA Confederations Cup External links * Official AFC website Category:Confederations